230 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
April 3, 1909. 
cf Ic.rres and not much fruit. Good cul¬ 
tural treatment with plenty of light and air 
in the early stages is necessar}^ to short- 
jcinted stems. 
3762. Thinning's of Vegetables. 
When weeding the beds of Onions, 'Carrots 
and Parsnips, I always have to throwaway 
a large number of good plants. Would it 
be worth while to transplant the best of them 
into other ground? It seems a great waste 
to throw them away. (Vegetable, Middle¬ 
sex.) 
You cannot effect a great saving by at¬ 
tempting to transplant Carrots, Parsnips, or 
any other taprooted vegetable, because you 
are almost certain to destroy The slender 
tap-root which serves to go straight down 
into the soil and produce a good clean root 
in the autumn. The best you can do in 
these cases is to .avoid thick sowing. Onions 
may be transplanted with every chance of 
success if you lift them with good roofs, and 
plant them asrain immediately. The making 
of a good bulb is quite a different thing 
from the production of a straight clean tap¬ 
root . 
FRUIT. 
3763. Fruit for a Screen. 
There is an iron fence at the lower end of 
our garden, but as we have a piece of ground 
outside of this on which to grow vegetables, 
the fence is really now in the garden. As 
I want something to cover it to make a 
screen, I think it may as well be covered 
with something as nseful as ornamental. 
Would you please name anything in the way 
of fruit that would grow there. It gets sun 
all day. (H. F. D., Yorks.) 
You can grow fruits well on such a fence, 
and expect good crops of such things as 
P.ed and White Currants and Gooseberries. 
They may form a greater attraction to birds 
by being exposed in this way, but a fence 
can easily be covered with herring net dur¬ 
ing the period of ripening. Black Currants 
should also succeed under those eruditions. 
Loganberries would furnish variety, while 
Apple trees could also be grown upon the 
fence. In the case of Apple trees you 
would require a wider border of good soil 
than for the others, as the roots spread more 
widely, but to make sure of good growth in 
the case of the other plants mentioned, you 
should take out the soil to a depth of at 
least 2 ft. and 2 ft. to 3 ft. wide. You can 
then- judge of the character of the soil as 
to whether it would be advantageous to add 
fresh material. In .anv case you could use 
plenty of manure in the lower part of the 
trench, as you can always add some on the 
ton afterwards, if that should be necessary. 
Never think of sticking in trees or bushes 
in a hard soil without previous prepara¬ 
tion. 
GARDEN ENEMIES. 
3764. Kale Affected with Grubs. 
As .a reader of your paper weekly, I 
would be pleased if you could tell me 
through its columns the cause of this plant 
enclosed being in such a mess with this moth. 
The whole of my Cabbages are more or 
less the same, as also Turnips. I would be 
pleased if you would give me a cure for 
it. I was thinking the garden may have 
got toe much hen pen from the tenant before 
me, as he kept a good stock of hens. How¬ 
ever, T do not know, and will be very thank¬ 
ful for anv information you could give 
me. (Jas. IF. Birrell, Fifeshire.) 
The specimen of Kale you sent was badly 
affec ed with the grubs of the Cabbage Fly 
fAnthomyia Brassicae), a two-winged flv, 
and not a moth as you seem to suspect. The 
soil of your garden must have got in a bad 
waj r , hut we do not attribute this to the 
presence of fowls, nor to the manure left 
by them. The conditions must have been 
favourable to the fly, and no attempt appar¬ 
ently has been made to keep it in check. 
Fowls, would no doubt eat the grubs if they 
could get at them, but, as a rule, they are 
hidden. Moreover, your predecessor could 
not actually, have kept fowls amongst the 
Kale in the garden, otherwise they would 
have eaten the greens and otherwise have 
done a deal of harm to the various things 
grown. The fly lays its eggs upon any 
member of the Cabbage family, as well as 
O'l Turnips. They bore into the stems dur¬ 
ing autumn, and feed throughout the winter 
on anything that may be standing in the 
ground of the kinds just mentioned. We 
should advise you to carefully dig up and 
bmn all very badly infested plants that are 
of no value. They can either he burned on 
a heap of primings, or buried so deeply that 
the grubs would be unable to get to the 
surface again. They should at least be 
2 ft. below the surface. It would, there¬ 
fore, be convenient and easier to burn the 
old Kale runts when they cease to be of 
value. In the case of young Cabbages, 
Cauliflowers, or anything valuable, you 
could scrape away the soil from the neck of 
the plant with your hands or a trowel, and 
remove as many of the grubs as possible by 
means of a r.eedle, pin, bradawl, or any- 
thing handy. When these grubs are full 
fed they pass into the ground a few inches 
below the surface, and form a pupa case in 
which they undergo changes, and when they 
attain the perfect stage they are ready to 
recommence their work of destruction” by 
laying eggs upon the plants, and from these 
eggs another brood of the enemy hatches out. 
On a larger scale you could put a peck of 
hot lime into a barrel containing 14 to 20 
gallons of water. Let. this stand for 
twenty-four hours, and when the sediment 
settles you can water the base of the plants 
with the liquid. The lime will destroy the 
grubs with which ilt comes in contact, but 
there are always some inside the thick 
swellings at which you cannot get. A good 
plan would be to trench all ground as it be¬ 
comes vacant in autumn, at least 2^ ft. deep. 
The top spit could be turned info the bottom, 
thereby burying grubs and pupae that have 
already passed into the soil. Over the first 
spit you could put a good dressing of gas 
lime. If this is done in autumn no harm 
will accrue to anything that may be planted 
in spring. It is a very troublesome enemy, 
and you will have to persevere until you 
thoroughly reduce its numbers. The above 
are the most practical methods of doing so 
that are known. 
3765. Thousands of Insects. 
I am a life reader of The Gardening 
World, and would like to know if you could 
tell me what this insect is I enclose in the 
tin. It appears here on the ground each 
year, and generally after foggy weather, in 
light purple patches by the thousand, and 
they tell me it is injurious., but I fail to 
see it, as it only remains a time and then 
vanishes, but I do not know into what. I 
have lived in several diffeient counties in 
England, but have not seen it before. I 
have not been so close to the sea before as 
at present. Does the salt air have anything 
to do with it? An answer in The Garden¬ 
ing World would be greatly appreciated. 
We are also familiar with the appearance 
of the creatures of which you sent us a re¬ 
markable boxful. It is one of the family 
of Springtails or Podura, and popularly 
known as Ephemeron (plural Ephemera), in 
allusion to the short-lived existence of the 
creature. These small, so-called insects, 
are not endowed with much power for biting, 
and cannot therefore do much harm to 
healthy plants. They often come suddenly, 
as you say, and may be found covering 
pools of stagnant and dirty water, especially 
in the neighbourhood of manure heaps. The 
neighbourhood of the sea does not seem to 
influence the creature one way or the other. 
If you desire to get rid of them, give a 
dressing of quicklime. Stagnant water 
should also be allowed to run away, or 
otherwise dealt with so as to leave nothing 
fox it upon which to feed. 
SOILS AND MANURES . 
3766. How to Ferment Manure. 
I put a lot of stable litter in a heap for 
making a hotbed later on. I damped it wiith 
water .as the work proceeded, but it does not 
seem to get warm. I started a fortnight ago 
and have turned it once I should be glad 
if you could .advise me what to co. (C. H., 
Northampton.) 
With the snow that fell some time ago 
.and the rain that has been falling since, there 
was no necessity for damping the stable lit¬ 
ter as that can very readily be overdone. 
Cold water prevents the organisms from liv¬ 
ing and bringing about the process known 
as fermentation. If yen do not want to make 
up the hotbed in the course of a week after 
you get the manure, you should have spread 
it out thinly and even have placed a cover 
of some sort over it, such as boards, an old 
door, or a tarpaulin to keep out the wet. 
You can ferment manure sufficiently in the 
course of a week, making it ready for com¬ 
pleting the hotbed in that time. The only 
occasion on which water should be used is 
y/hen the manure is very dry and liable to 
heat too violently. A slight sprinkling with 
the water-can will then serve to make it heat 
more slowily. When you get more manure, 
keep it spread out and dry until veu want 
to ferment it. Then the plan is to get a 
fork and shake up the manure as loosely as 
possible in a conical heap. It will ferment 
or get warm in two or three days. It should 
then be turned again, placing the ranker 
material in the centre of the heap and the 
more rotted material on the outside. We do 
not think that water would be necessary out 
of doors at the present time under any cir¬ 
cumstances. When this second heap has lain 
for two or three days more you can then 
build up the hotbed, shaking the rnanuie 
a.oain so that it mav .settle down evenly. 
While building the bed you can tread it now 
and again, and that will make it heat more 
slowly and last longer after the frame is 
pfficed on it. 
3767. Is Soot Harmful? 
Can you say if there is anything poisonous 
in soot, as I lost about a dozen Pyrethrums 
and a lot of Pansies laist year. I gave them 
a dose of soot, scattering it over the foliage 
and around the plants to keep away slugs. 
Anyway, I cannot account for them dying, 
unless it was the scot. An answer will much 
oblige. (A. F. Brown, Kent.) 
There might be some sulphur in soot, ac¬ 
cording to the source from which you ob¬ 
tained it, and that might prove injurious, 
but it is ammonia that is so harmful to 
plants when much soot is placed upon them. 
It would not be poisonous if used in 
moderate quantity, as it is a good manure, 
but it is very easy to overdo it, especially 
when you place the scot over the foliage of 
the plants. The ammonia itself would very 
quickly destroy leaves, but damage must 
also have been done by the stopping up of 
the pores of the leaves. You should be care- 
ful not to use it in such large quantities, 
and if yon spread it on the ground around 
the plants, there is no occasion for spreading 
it over the foliage. It should always he 
kept dry until you are about to use it, when, 
of course, it will he of most service, but you 
should be careful as to how you use it. 
